Saturday, October 6, 2012

What A Wonderful World

One of the first things taught in Libertarianism 101 is that "Utopia Is Not An Option".

Statists often argue that if Farm Bill 2987234-234E doesn't pass, then what would Libertarians do about the kid with Leukemia whose father was diagnosed with Aids after the plague of locusts destroyed the farm because a family of raccoons chewed threw the electric fence, the very electric fence that Farm Bill 2987234-234E would provide along with the cheese subsidy. What would you Libertarians do about that if you dared touch the funding for Farm Bill 2987234-234E??

This reasoning assumes that if John Boehner/Nancy Pelosi didn't take care of the kid with leukemia, no one else would either. The private sector and charities would step in. They did it in the past and they could do it again. Absence of government subsidies made medicine cheaper and doctors less risk-averse. It wasn't Utopia then, but it's not Utopia now, and it won't be Utopia (Lord hasten the day) in a more Libertarian future.

But just imagine with me.....

We could end the Drug War. The Drug Lords would go belly-up. People could move freely across the Rio Grande. Texans hopping down to Mexico would be like hopping up to Oklahoma. Would it be a Utopia? No. Some people might become addicts who wouldn't ordinarily become addicted. But they would probably be more likely to get treatment. Hundreds of thousands of people wouldn't be in jail. They recently legalized everything in Portugal, and addiction rates went down!! One million government jailer/narc/torturer/DEA jobs wouldn't be necessary. Barack Obama, George W. Bush, John Kerry, Al Gore, and Bill Clinton could all smoke weed openly, the way they did when they were younger. Another 40,000 Mexican bystanders wouldn't die in the violence. It wouldn't be a Utopia, but it would be better than the current disaster.

We could End The Freakin' Federal Reserve. A dollar saved wouldn't mean 50 cents lost. Ben Bernanke wouldn't be allowed to do any more counterfeiting. Would the absence of a Federal Reserve mean that we'd be at the mercy of the ups and downs of the business cycle? (Which was part of the rationale for The Fed's creation - LOL.) Yes, we might see some weirdness because of the ups and downs of the business cycle. It wouldn't be a Utopia. But I'd bet my bottom dollar that it would be less screwed up than what we have now.

I've got a friend named Roger who is going to vote for Obama because of Obama's newly discovered support of gay marriage (among other reasons). Never mind the total cynicism of Obama's new position on this. The bigger question is what the hell is the government doing in the marriage business anyway? If it matters to you who gets elected president, then your government is too big. Would a smaller government be a Utopia? Heck no. But it would be infinitely better than the plague of busybodies currently trying to regulate your diet, health, safety, marriage, drug use, alcohol consumption hours, payroll and gun cabinet.

If you're a taxpayer, your share of the national debt is $80,000.00. Your share of the unfunded liabilities is a number so staggering that no one can calculate it properly. Somewhere around 350K to 500K. This is a lot of money, and we'll never, ever pay it off. Imagine that it was your brother-in-law who got you into this much debt, mostly for what he considered to be worthwhile causes. You'd kill him. Every serious investor knows we're playing a shell game. We keep acting as if the problem will go away. When it crashes, it's going to be horrible. Absolutely horrible. Civil unrest, hungry people, and a total breakdown of society.

I haven't mentioned the money we're spending killing women and children in Pakistan, and how we're going to pay a price for that. There are some 15-year-old boys in Pakistan watching Obama's drones fly over, and they're plotting their revenge. On you.